Observations and reflections from Tibor R. Machan, professor of business ethics and writer on general and political philosophy, now teaching at Chapman University in Orange, CA.

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Essay from Think on Why Liberty is needed for Morality

Why Liberty is Necessary for Morality*

Tibor R. Machan

It is often taken to be a feature of a free society that it rests on thebelief that no one can tell what is morally right or wrong. That issupposed to be why people are not imposed upon with strictures thegovernment forces them to follow. If, however, we could determine what isright and wrong, then, the idea follows, government could just proceed toforce everyone to behave right.

A sad result of so explaining the merits of a free society is that itbegins to look like liberty is the enemy of morality. And it is just thisway that a good many people have understood the Western tradition ofliberalism. They have come to believe that if you accept the Western ideaof a free society, you must not care about morality at all. Indeed,arguably a great many enemies of the West hold such a view. Love theWest, reject morality; love morality, reject the West.

Yet this is completely wrong. In point of fact precisely the opposite istrue. The reason the Western idea of a free society makes a great deal ofsense is that unless people make their moral choices and act on themfreely, there cannot be anything morally praiseworthy in what they do.

A person who does the right thing because it is commanded, forced uponhim, isn?t acting morally. Such a person is acting from fear, not theconviction that what he is doing is morally right. Indeed, it is only insubstantially free societies that men and women can be morally good. Ifone is regimented to praise Allah or God or give to the poor or defendone?s country, there is absolutely nothing praiseworthy about that. Oneis then being a mere puppet, certainly not a morally responsible humanagent.

Of course, there have been some who have defended the individual?s rightto liberty on the ground that no one can tell what is right or wrong. Some very famous people have done this. Yet their defense of humanliberty is a weak, ineffectual one. That?s because if one cannot tellwhat is right or wrong, one cannot tell whether violating someone?s rightto liberty is right or wrong. So, a moral skeptic simply has noconsistent reason to complain if the right to liberty is violated.

Those, however, who insist that they do know right from wrong have nojustification for opposing the free society. For adult men and women tobe morally praiseworthy ? or, alternatively, blameworthy ? for somethingthey do, they have to do it freely, of their own initiative, not becausethey are coerced to do it.

No one is morally improved by being forced to be generous, just, kind,courageous, prudent, honest, charitable, moderate, humble or the like. The paternalistic motivations behind many governmental measures thatostensibly aim to make people good are hopelessly misguided.

I would even question the motivation of those who promote coercivegovernmental measures aimed to reduce vice and increase virtue ? sincecoercion kills personal responsibility, and does this very obviously, itis more likely that advocates of coercively getting people to be good arepower seekers, not promoters of morality at all. They merely use moralityas an excuse to rule other people. In the name of such allegedly goodintentions, they perpetrate the most dehumanizing deed toward people;namely, they promote robbing them of their liberty to choose.

Of course, the laws of a free society cannot guaranteed that thecitizenry will choose the right way to act. That is something in thehands of the citizens themselves and their fellow citizens, friends,community leaders, teachers, writers, and others who urge us all to dowhat?s right, not officers of the law whose task is to keep the peace, notto make people good! But in a free society, where no one is authorized todump the results of his or her misdeeds on others' lives, people are moreencouraged to do the right thing than in societies where personalresponsibility is missing because of the lack of individual liberty. So,critics of the free society who want more emphasis on morality than onliberty would do better if they first stood up to defend liberty. Fromthat the prospects for genuine, freely chosen morality are far greaterthan they are wherever men and women aren?t free.

*This essay appeared in the Royal Institute of Philosophy publicationThink (Spring 2005).